9 ms·
Apple to drop Google Maps in iOS 6 for in-house Maps?
- mxfh 14y agoThat right mockup view comes apparently from a screenshot of Nokia Maps 3D, even down to the old Nokia font and label Coloring: http://maps.nokia.com/37.7976001,-122.3979938,17.42,195.29,72,3d.day http://maps.nokia.com/37.7976001,-122.3979938,17.42,195.29,7... (requires Plugin) WebGL Version: http://maps.nokia.com/webgl/#|37.7976|-122.3979938|0|900|70|160 http://maps.nokia.com/webgl/#|37.7976|-122.3979938|0|900|70|...
- asdfdsa1234 14y agoI have been delayed by Google Maps mistakes several times, and I don't even use it often. The error rate is ridiculous. I would love for Apple to come up with a superior product.
- statictype 14y agoI've found Google Maps to be great for spanning long distance but poor at navigating individual streets. I've been burned many times by landmarks and locations being no where near where it shows on the map (I live in India - your milage may vary). That said, Google's been doing this for years and this is kind of the thing that they would be very good at (making sense out of a large corpus of data quickly). I'd be very surprised if Apple's new maps were as good out the door (let alone better).
- asdfdsa1234 14y agoThis fits my experience as well--long distances are fine, but closer in it's unreliable. No doubt this is not an easy task and I have to agree that Apple faces an uphill fight here.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- destraynor 14y agoThis kind of thing is inevitable. "We believe that we need to own and control the primary technologies behind the products we make. We participate only in markets where we can make a significant contribution." – Tim Cook on Apple's philosophy. (full text here: http://destraynor.com/cook/ http://destraynor.com/cook/)
- canthonytucci 14y agoHere's hoping I don't have to go back and change all my my UIMapView code.
- thornofmight 14y agoCan someone more knowledgable on the subject elaborate on how exactly this 3d works?
- bgarbiak 14y agoHere's how Nokia did it: http://youtu.be/emKttWFcJ_g http://youtu.be/emKttWFcJ_g (simplistically)
- aw3c2 14y agoYou take aerial imagery and laser-scan/photogrametric data. You can create rough 3D models from the aerial images already if they overlap enough. The laserscanning data and terrestrial photos can be used for more detail and accuracy. You could also use government data if your government provides geodata like coordinates, houses etc. It is impressive but not really hard (theoretically). Check out eg http://maps3d.svc.nokia.com/webgl/index.html http://maps3d.svc.nokia.com/webgl/index.html
- xanadohnt 14y agoWhat's this laser scanning? Vector topographic data and aerial imagery is all that's necessary.
- aw3c2 14y agoTheoretically just the aerial images would be enough if you have some control points. But I remember the Nokia people say they used mobile laserscan data. Can't find the source anymore though, I thought it was on HN actually.
- T-zex 14y agoWill they provide an offline mode?
- megablast 14y agoThey would probably provide caching, which is what the current map application does. Hopefully they will let you pre-cache areas, such as you can do in Android, but I doubt it. Anyway, no point speculating too much.
- yellowbkpk 14y agoThis entire article boils down to one sentence "According to trusted sources, Apple has an incredible headline feature in development for iOS 6: a completely in-house maps application." The rest of it is speculation about what might exist.
- laconian 14y agoThe headline is obnoxious too. It hasn't happened. It might happen, but the way they wrote it makes it sound like Tim Cook got on a podium and announced that to the world.
- LaSombra 14y agoThat's the Apple's distortion field in action.
- jkap 14y agoNo, it's shitty journalism in action.
- laconian 14y agoThe RDF gives free license to shitty journalism. Trendy subjects makes SEO-obsessed content mill writers happy. Just read Techmeme - the content is almost all trendy garbage.
- Zirro 14y agoThere's nothing wrong with speculating based on facts, as long as you make it clear that it's speculation and not reality.
- weiran 14y agoThey're not speculating based on fact, they're speculating based on an anonymous source's tip, which may or may not be true. In fact given their history of posting about every Apple rumour that exists, I wouldn't put much weight onto the accuracy of this rumour at all. This doesn't mean I don't think a new maps app is coming, I just don't think 9to5mac's sources would know about it if it was.
- n9com 14y agoWhat happens to apps that use MapKit?
- kyleslattery 14y agoI imagine it would just keep on working exactly the same, except that the map tiles will look slightly different.
- shinratdr 14y agoI think that is answered by the fact that Apple called it MapKit instead of GoogleMaps or something along those lines.
- jasonkostempski 14y agoHow about spoken turn-by-turn navigation first so people can stop risking their lives and the peoples lives around them every time a turn is coming up?
- rkudeshi 14y agoI'm not sure it's fair to pin that on Apple. There are a number of navigation apps in the App Store, free and paid, that anyone can download (I use Navigon and it's paid for itself a hundred times over). It's not as if Apple doesn't permit them, they just choose not to include it for free. Would you say Google is obligated to add free text messages to Android just because Apple has it (iMessage) and it saves money for people?
- matt312 14y agoWell, in all fairness, Google does offer free text messages in Android via Google Voice.
- smackfu 14y agoWaze is decent and free and uses crowd-sourced map corrections.
- xanadohnt 14y agoWaze is OK but you'll need an overall intuition of your route and not follow it blindly contrary to how many people use their GPS. Imagine heading north on a highway and needing to get on an intersecting highway going west. Often it'll tell you to "take a left" onto the other highway forsaking the reality that you should veer right and take the cloverleaf exit. It will also give routes that don't exist. Again with the intersecting highways: imagine the two aren't connected where they intersect. Waze may go ahead and route you through an imaginary exit. But know your route and Waze can be helpful and even a little fun.
- smackfu 14y agoWhat you should do is use the button to mark that as a bad turn. Then it will get flagged in the map editor, and anyone who's in there will see it and can fix the roads. In my local area, it's had drastic improvements in just the last month or so. What's clever is that they also generate automated suggested corrections. Like a local intersection has a little cut-through side road to turn right. It isn't on any maps, but people obviously take it, so Waze noticed a lot of people driving off road there instead of the suggested route, and flagged it as a possible correction. Waze just seems to me like so much smarter a solution to GPS than the traditional providers. They actually use the two-way features of the phone in a way that a traditional GPS system will not.
- rvkennedy 14y agoAnd all I want is a decent Google Maps app on my iPhone. The Android map is so far above what iOS offers - having recently lost my Galaxy s2 to a freak elevator accident I thought I'd go back to iPhone for a while, and this was one of many shocks to the system. I'm approaching the feeling that the only things iPhone does better than Android (for my purposes) is store music and sync podcasts.
- marvin 14y agoDid you drop the phone into the tiny crack between the elevator car and the wall? Because I have nightmares about doing that whenever I carry a smartphone around an elevator.
- megablast 14y agoI have the opposite opinion, when I lots my iPhone and fell back on my Nexus One. The maps were awful, it would never get my current positions. Preloading map areas sounded like a great idea, but it never worked well for me. It would constantly forget the surrounding area, even 1 minute after it was just working. I understand the Google version uses vectors rather than images, so it should work better, but never did for me.
- st3fan 14y agoMaybe Siri will now also start working in Canada. Seriously, what is holding Apple back. Is Google stalling that?
- dabeeeenster 14y agoWhat a lot of hot air. The killer aspect of Google Maps on Android is the turn by turn navigation with traffic. That saves me hundreds of £ a year and is just brilliant. "but it is described as a much cleaner, faster, and more reliable experience" I'm sorry, but what a lot of bullshit.
- fierarul 14y agoEither you have a fleet of trucks or you are overestimating how much Android's navigation is saving you. When my GPS broke down, I didn't start using my phone, I just bought another GPS for 99 euro. (And funny thing is the old one has just some loose wires and could be fixed a few months later by an electrician.)
- sohn 14y agoWe're really happy for you, you have so much money you can afford to waste it. But normal people doesn't.
- stanleydrew 14y agoIt seems awfully strange to nit pick about the savings. So what if it's saving him only £50 per year or whatever? Can we agree that it's nonzero? Ok great. Now we can move on to addressing the meat of the comment. Which is that iOS users have been denied the luxury of excellent and free turn-by-turn navigation available on Android, and this maps update does nothing to address that.
- fierarul 14y agoTo me, using navigation on the phone would be more of a convenience than a matter of savings. The 99 euro GPS I was talking about was the cheapest in store and it even had Traffic Message Channel (TMC), something the older one didn't. Also, the GPS would get super hot in the windshield -- I would have never used my phone instead! Anyhow, all that out of the way, I guess you are right that turn by turn would be nice on iOS.
- pcl 14y ago
- _djo_ 14y agoI fear that if true this might be a step backwards for users outside of the US, as Google has spent a massive amount of effort collecting Street View data from all over the world. I highly doubt that Apple or the mapping companies it has acquired have quite the same coverage.
- ChuckMcM 14y agoYou may not realize it but you make one and possibly two assumptions with this statement, first that Apple isn't currently collecting equivalent street view data (Microsoft has done the same with their mapping product), and possibly two that the collection of the data for Apple would take as much time as it did for Google. Sure there is the physical drive around stuff. But if you look at the C3 stuff (the company Apple bought that turns satellite images into 3D views) you can see where they might go with it. Also they do have a ton of cash and it would be seriously less than half a billion dollars to take a picture of the world. You might even get Toyota to make the 'steet view' edition version of the Prius in quantity. The key thought for me here is that if this report is true, then Apple has decided mapping is strategic and taken it in house. And like Google (who did this in part so they could offer turn by turn directions [1]) they could exploit data they own for a wide variety of purposes. [1] The original sources of Google's map information did not include a license to use it for turn by turn as that was exclusively given to another company by the vendor. Google had to acquire their own data without those restrictions in order to do navigation.
- jeffpersonified 14y agoBeyond pushing Google further out of their device and perhaps creating a more accurate mapping system, what do you think are the "strategic" points for bringing cartography in house? It's not like Apple would be interested in unmanned vehicle nav, or something... right? I myself can't think of any strategic reasons beyond competition with Google.
- ChuckMcM 14y agoThe strategic reason is mobile. It isn't well known but all of these databases of aerial imagery, maps, street directions, speed limits, addresses are all sometimes licensable by third parties, sometimes not, and sometimes at extortionate rates. How much of your mobile experience hinges on your use of location data? From turn by turn directions, general maps, businesses nearby, mass transit schedules, to friend locations and check-ins. Bottom line, Geographic information systems (GIS) data is a must-have feature for a smartphone. Google has started raising the price on access to their data, this started a while ago and its been in fits and starts, but Apple can't just 'dump' all map info. Microsoft, same deal $$ for map datasets. So Apple is in the position of its two largest competitors having a way to suck arbitrary amounts of money out of them because they are suppliers of the 'must' have data on a smartphone. New independent companies that can create GIS datasets can't compete with 'free' from Google and Microsoft for users, and even if they succeeded in creating a decent database and Apple used it, they would be subject to being purchased by Google or Microsoft. Finally there are patents (of course) around the use of map data and constructing maps etc from imagery, which a small company could not defend against but Apple can. Therefore Apple has to own a GIS database that is at least as good as Google's version so that it can continue to provide a critical feature on their phone cost effectively.
- jonknee 14y ago3D is a cool demo, but turn by turn is actually useful. Let's hope Apple at least matches what Google Maps can do before switching for the sake of taking a jab.
- swalsh 14y agoCan I choose to use google maps if I wish? Or is that against apples command?
- rkudeshi 14y agoNothing stopping Google from publishing their own app in the App Store when this happens, much like how Bing has their own Maps app or Vimeo has an app even though YouTube is pre-installed on iOS. In fact, that might even be better for Google. They've griped in the past about how Apple was slow to implement new features. In particular, I know they hated the YouTube app (which Apple made). That's why the mobile site no longer redirects to the app - they wanted to be able to control the experience and iterate faster. (I suspect the only reason Google hasn't terminated their agreement on the preinstalled apps already is because having YouTube and Google Maps on every single iOS device is worth more than fast integration of new features.)
- chucknelson 14y agoHow did this get on the front page of HN? This is just another rumor speculating about things that were speculated on last month, and the month before that, etc. I guess I don't understand what makes this one so much more interesting or credible/worthy of much discussion. Edit: Also, the link/headline is totally misleading. I'm sure others have said this too.
- rkudeshi 14y agoProbably because it's the first to definitively say the new Maps are coming in iOS 6. It's common knowledge that Apple has been buying maps companies to build their own app, but AFAIK this is the first time we've gotten a solid release date.
- brk 14y agoHow did this get on the front page of HN? Hn is run on a software stack that allows a registered user to submit a link/URL to an item they determine to be of potential interest to the community. After that link is submitted it appears on the listing of recently submitted articles at the /newest URL. Other users (with sufficient karma) that also find the link of value either upvote it, flag it, and/or comment on it. As an item receives upvotes and/or comments an algorithm ranks it accordingly amongst other submitted stories, making it potentially visible on the "front page" of the site. An items ranking is an overall generic indication that a sufficient number of users have found it noteworthy (or not). It's all really pretty basic and uses a concept that has been around for about 7 or 8 years now. However this "how did this item get to the front page..." question seems to come up with enough frequency that an answer should be more easy to find, or maybe even be emailed to all new accounts so that people will not need to ask these sorts of questions amongst discussions of the article itself.
- stanleydrew 14y agoI am reasonably certain that chucknelson is aware of the technical way a story makes it to the front page. His question then should be read as "how has a sufficient number of users found this noteworthy?"
- danso 14y agoOut-of-context excerpt: Technology behind Apple's new iPhone mapping system "based on de-classified missile target algorithms" developed by former "aerospace and defense company" Linkbait-conspiracy-tech-blog-post in 3...2...1
- ricardobeat 14y agoLot's of tech in any smartphone (not just Siri) comes from military offshoots.
- protomyth 14y agoApple acquired Placebase in 2009, Poly9 in 2010, and C3 Technologies in 2011. I cannot imagine not replacing a 3rd party product when a company buy 3 companies for the same product, particularly if the 3rd party product is owned by a competitor.
- philp 14y agoComing from Android what I'm really missing — and was hoping to get out of the numerous geo related Apple acquisitions — is a proper competitor to Google's in-house navigation software. The GPS software integrated with iOS is an atrocity compared to what you get with Gingerbread(?) and higher. Seeing that smartphones are increasingly replacing standalone consumer GPS solutions, I think its fair to say that Apple dropped the ball on this one. Maybe I'm jaded but who cares about 3D pictures when what I really want is a solution to get from A to B?
- surferbayarea 14y agoCool! I've lost some love for google maps since they started showing the sponsored link as the first result. What was before a one search, one click activity is now one search, zoom to distinguish between the sponsored and real listing(often close by), then click. Pain!
- heed 14y agoJust so it's clear I want to point out that the current Maps app isn't a Google developed app. The only part that is Google is the map data and base map, everything else is Apple tech.
- shinratdr 14y agoAs someone who uses public transit, I couldn't care less about turn by turn or voice nav. All I want from iOS 6 Maps.app is alternate transit routes. As much as I agree with Apple's move from a srratigic standpoint, as a user I'm worried about possible regressions. I hope they choose to release it only for the iPad or iPod touch to gauge reaction before releasing it to iPhone users. I think the average usage of those products would allow a pretty Maps app that still needs fleshing out, whereas I need my phone maps app to be reliable over all else.